Localism Bill

Lord Moynihan Excerpts

Tuesday 5th July 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greaves]

My Lords, I have Amendment 130ZC in this group, which I will speak to in a minute. Before I do, I want to say that I think we agree with a very great deal, if not everything, of what the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, has just said. We certainly agree with the broad thrust of his amendments. It seems illogical that if there is to be a system in which local people can, in the terminology here, challenge the existing providers of a service and suggest that they might do it better, that should be only for services that are provided by local government, not by other public bodies, because when it comes down to it services provided by local government, as opposed to other public bodies, are fairly arbitrary. There are good reasons for a lot of them, but for some of them it is not very clear why local government does them and someone else does not. It is certainly not clear why someone else does a lot of things and local government does not in this country. The division is arbitrary and it seems to me that the relevant criteria should be whether it is a local service and then whether it is desirable that this should apply to it.

We agree very substantially with the noble Lord’s Amendment 130, and with his Amendment 131, which would allow a local authority on behalf of its community to take over in appropriate places. Of course, there is a great question mark over how funding is going to be arranged. You immediately get into all sorts of questions about whether there would be ring-fenced funding for a particular service or whether it would be rolled up in the general local government grant, the existing formula funding or whatever is going to replace it, and how that would be organised. Nevertheless, those are not insuperable problems. Initially, one assumes that there would be ring-fenced funding for particular services that were transferred, but the basic principle is something that we would certainly support.

The noble Lord is not enthusiastic about his Amendment 132 requiring local authorities to produce a list of challengeable services. He suggested that it is bureaucratic. However, there is certainly another side of that coin because the Government are going to lay down a list of services that are not challengeable and that are excluded. Indeed, they are going to give themselves power in regulations to change that list from time to time, as we have already discussed. If people know what they cannot challenge, presumably they can work out what they can challenge, so it is not really a problem and the noble Lord’s amendment is probably unnecessary, whether or not it elicits enthusiasm.

My Amendment 130ZC would allow a district council in a two-tier area to challenge the county council and to suggest in certain circumstances that it could take over county services. There is an ongoing argument in some areas between districts and counties about what counties do and what districts do. In my own county of Lancashire, there was a great deal of devolution from the county to the districts in 1974. It simply followed existing practice with the old municipal boroughs and even some of the larger urban districts in the county. In recent years, the county council has been pulling services back and taking them to the centre, even though it is a large, far-flung council. I do not know exactly how far it is from north to south, but it cannot be far off 80 or 100 miles, and it is 60 or 70 miles from east to west, so it is a huge county. It is also an area with strong districts, some of which used to be county boroughs and are still resentful of having been downgraded, and some of which have always been strong municipal boroughs and are now the basis of strong districts.

District councils across the country vary hugely. Some are, frankly, quite feeble and weak affairs, and others try to behave as if they were unitary authorities but do not quite get away with it. Nevertheless, there are a lot of services that it can be argued would be better run at a local level and which in many cases have been. An example is local highway functions that cover not the main roads but local streets. In Lancashire, they were run by most of the districts until three or four years ago when the county decided to take most highway powers back to itself. Demonstrably, the system has not improved since then. Some would say that it has not got worse, but others might disagree with that. It is an area that could be challenged.

The whole area of leisure and recreation has a very local base to it in many cases. One example is country parks. Having a network of country parks across a wide council might be the best way to do it, or country parks might best be run at a local level and involving local people.

[Lord Moynihan]

I am grateful to my noble friend for raising that. Very briefly, a classic example of this are the national sport centres, which initially were set up to focus on excellence in sport and did so for many decades but which increasingly have come to serve the local community through community use and Sport for All. These are surely very good examples of where you can be far more aligned to local authorities—if they are run by local authorities—working with local clubs and with local governing bodies while protecting high-performance sport.

[Lord Greaves]

I am grateful to my noble friend for that intervention. Libraries are an example of this. In some parts of the country they are very controversial at the moment because they are being closed down on quite a large scale, while in other places they are not. So long as the existing funding for a library may be transferred to districts, there is no reason at all why districts cannot take libraries over. Indeed, the municipal boroughs before 1974 were the library authorities, and many of the fairly new libraries that now exist were built by the boroughs and not by the county council. If the county council is seriously looking at reorganising its library service, one of the ways in which it could perhaps increase the efficiency of libraries and local involvement in them is by transferring at least some of them to the districts. I am not saying that that is an ideal solution everywhere, but it is something that ought to be challengeable. There are a number of things like that.

As for national services, the ward I represent on the council had a recent problem of raw sewage flowing down from an inefficient septic tank system on a caravan site on a hillside and causing real problems to residents in the lane below. Noble Lords can imagine what their back gardens were like—not very pleasant at all. The Environment Agency became involved in this. It came and went and came and went, and the district council, which has no direct responsibility for it, became involved, and in the end it was the district council that actually organised the system, spent the money and connected the caravan site to the main sewage system. It then recharged the people who lived on the site and the people who own it. It was the district council that actually sorted it out on the ground, even though, as far as I could work out, the statutory responsibility lay with the Environment Agency. That is a classic example of the kind of service that, if transferred at a local level to a competent local council, might well be run better.

As for the river system, the Environment Agency is responsible for main rivers, but certainly in our part of the world some of the things that are classified as main rivers are tiny little streams. There is no reason at all why they should not be the responsibility of the district council. The district council has no statutory responsibility for rivers and it is not funded by government for it, but some district councils employ drainage officers because they are the sensible people on the ground who sort out flooding and drainage problems when they occur. How much better if they were actually statutorily responsible for it? I therefore support the noble Lord’s amendment with some enthusiasm, and put mine forward with enthusiasm as well.

Localism Bill

Lord Moynihan Excerpts

Tuesday 5th July 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, I want to speak to Amendment 136ZD in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Cathcart. My noble friend the Minister is aware that I raised reservations at Second Reading about this part of the Bill and the unintended consequences affecting private owners who allow their property to be used for community use. I thank my noble friend for her explanation earlier because it starts to clarify the intentions. However, the intention of this amendment is to provide greater clarity and also thereby allay justified concerns with a definition of an asset of community value and to provide clear guidance to local authorities, which is essential if we are to avoid confusion and unnecessary legal action which could be the case if we do not get this definition right.

I also think that we should strengthen the tests which have to be met in relation to nominations for the community asset register. We should firm up and define what is intended by community value. The primary requirement in all cases should be that assets of community value must promote social well-being through their past or current use. There should also be a secondary requirement, where local authorities consider it appropriate, of furthering the economic and environmental well-being of the community.

The amendment sets out the various factors that local authorities must take into account: current use; planning policies that affect the asset, which could include planning permissions already in place; what the nominator is proposing to use the asset for; evidence of wider support for the nominator’s proposals within the community; where there may be another site in the locality which could serve the same purpose. I think very much of the local library that might be closing but another publically owned property could be used for that purpose.

However, in accepting that exclusions from the listing will need to be in the regulations rather than in the Bill, the key one is that most residential premises must be excluded from listing. I say most because I can understand the asset where there is a pub where the living accommodation is secondary to the purpose. I am persuaded that village shops, post offices and pubs should be assets, which if communities wish to bid, they should be in a position to do so.

There are so many examples of private individuals enabling communities to use part of their residential premises and it is essential that the regulations make it absolutely clear that these premises are not included. I therefore hope that my noble friend the Minister will give this amendment due consideration and bring back on Report a comprehensive amendment on the definition of an asset of community value. As far as I am concerned the test will be that private owners will not in any way be advised that it would not be sensible for them to continue to allow their assets to be used by the community. If we do not get this right the net effect will be negative whereas what we are seeking to do is a positive thing for many communities.

[Lord Moynihan]

My Lords, I support Amendments 136, 136ZA and 136ZD, to which my noble friend has just spoken. In so doing I need to declare an interest as chairman of the British Olympic Association which has, among its principal objectives, the promotional of sport and recreation.

I seek guidance from my noble friend the Minister because I can see a great deal of good news for sport and recreation. Inasmuch as local authorities will have a duty to maintain a list of assets, the freedom to determine the form and content of the list, to set out specific requirements and to allow community nominations to be proposed, there is in many respects a presumption in favour of listing sport and recreation assets. I would have no problem whatever if this legislation applied exclusively to local authority or public sector facilities. Indeed, we had a lengthy debate this afternoon on Amendment 130, where my noble friend Lord Jenkin sought to insert,

“any public body, including, but not limited to, local authorities, government departments, government agencies and non-departmental public bodies”.

In that context, I see real benefit. As I say, I have no problem whatever with supporting it. On the contrary, it would enhance sport and recreation provision if the principles within this Bill, which I support, applied to those public sector facilities. Many playing fields owned by the Government and many local authority facilities would fall into that category.

However, as I read it and as I listened to the debate, Clause 74(1) and the amendments to which I speak apply to assets of community value wherever they are found, including on private property. Many noble Lords have understandable reservations regarding pubs and local shops, for example, but the situation regarding sport and recreation facilities is, I would argue, very different. Organised competitive sport in this country over the past 200 years has its roots in the relationship between landowners and sporting activity. Many cricket grounds, for example, are still located in the grounds of homes around the country. Many equestrian or sailing events and fishing activities are to be discovered on privately-owned land. The history of British sport rests on the amicable nexus between sport and recreation, on the one hand, and the good will of the private property owners—long may that remain the case—but as currently drafted the Bill risks halting that process.

The reason is this: that relationship is based on good will, on tradition, on the work of volunteers, the love of sport and recreation and, in many cases, clubs which have been formed, nurtured and flourished on the cornerstones of local communities to this day. As I understand it, the sole purpose in this context of the list would be to create transparency, providing a legislative process for local communities to bid for listed facilities. The bid, of course, could be rejected. Apart from that benefit of greater transparency, I seek guidance from the Minister because I do not see any further benefit. On the contrary, at the moment a mutually agreed sale can be agreed between the landowner and a community that uses those facilities. Simply put, the Bill provides for that transparency, then adds a whole series of measures which will negatively impact on the intention and good will of many landowners and homeowners to make their facilities available to the local community.

Let me cite an example. A private landowner who has a squash court attached to his property might want to provide a local village school with the opportunity regularly to use that court, but with this legislation the person concerned is unlikely to do so. He or she will certainly be very wary of so doing. When the property is up for sale, a search initiated by a future buyer may find that squash court is now listed under this legislation. A buyer making an offer may be time-constrained and thus walk from the sale or offer a reduced price. A buyer may well walk from a sale faced by a hostile local community, with the power of the press on their side given the publicised moratorium on the sale and the provisions in the Bill. I am sure that nobody in this House, on either side, can foresee this, but nevertheless there are risks that a future Government of a different political complexion might embed the full list in new right-to-buy legislation, damaging the value of the properties, or, looked at another way, putting a new tax on today’s market value of the properties. Put simply, many landowners will avoid these risks and shelve their plans to provide for sport and recreation today.

If my noble friend the Minister can allay these concerns I will rest persuaded, but on reading the Bill—I have not had the privilege that my noble friend Lord Hodgson has had of many letters or briefings on this subject; indeed, I have not had a single briefing—I am concerned that where there is good will among individual owners of properties, where, through their good will and intent, they build strong relations with their local communities, allow primary schools to access their land and use those facilities, the tennis court, swimming pool or squash court, the consequence of the Bill, which may be an unintended consequence, will be such that that individual immediately stops doing that any more for fear that listing will impact on the final value of the house. If there is a way to address that in the Bill and to recognise that nothing could be more damaging than multiplying that across the country with the negative impact that that would have on sport and recreation facilities and the negative impact that it would have on good will and local communities—which is what the Bill is all about in driving localism—I would be content to support the Bill, to move forward and to persuade my colleagues in the British Olympic Association that this is a subject that does not warrant the concern that it currently has.

Put simply, there are many landowners who I believe will avoid these risks, as I say, and shelve their plans to provide for sport and recreation. That would, frankly, be a disaster, particularly in the countryside, and I am sure that it is not the Government’s intention. As a result I ask my noble friend to address himself to my three amendments and to take this clause away in order to see how sport and recreation can be fully protected, particularly those facilities I have focused on this evening which are owned in the private sector by private landowners. I emphasise that I fully support the provisions of the Bill to free up many facilities that are owned in the public sector for community use—many playing fields we go past daily that are unused or underutilised—so that the local community can benefit from availing themselves of those facilities. If we can engage with that in the Bill and increase participation as a result, there will be real benefit, but if the unintended consequence is that we impact negatively on the good will in the private sector and among private landowners to make these facilities available, it would be a very sorry day for sport and recreation.

[Lord Jenkin of Roding]

I want to make one or two points. I have been hugely impressed by what my noble friends have been saying about this. I listened with care to what my noble friend on the Front Bench said about the objectives behind these provisions and I shall want to read that very carefully in order fully to understand. I am not sure, possibly as a result of my poor hearing, that I got it all, but I will read it.

My fear is due to the fact that the whole essence of localism is supposed to be building a partnership between local authorities and local communities. It depends for its development on the good will that will be generated by this process. I have put my name to a lot of amendments, including that to which the noble Lord, Lord Cotter, spoke earlier, because it seems to me that that is essential.

We are talking about public assets. I find it quite extraordinary that this is intended to apply to a wide range of privately owned assets. Businesses, yes—the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, made the point that, if there is a business such as a post office, a pub or something else that is going out of business, it is perfectly reasonable that a community might wish to say, “We can run this. We will take it over. We cannot open for the full time, but we will be open so many hours in the week” and be able to do that. That is a voluntary and community partnership.

What I find difficult is that this is all to be imposed by central government. There must be some way in which the statute could be drafted so as to build on the idea of community partnership with local authorities rather than giving everyone the sense that this is being imposed on them from the centre. One fact tells the story: there are 54 references to specific cases where the Secretary of State can issue regulations from the centre in this part of the Bill alone. The whole thing is being imposed from the centre.

I do not want to go on singing this song because I have sung it a good deal during the passage of the Bill, but the amount of detail that the Government are seeking to impose is absurd. Why do they have to decide and lay down what is of community value? Why can a local authority not establish criteria? Guidance could be given about the sort of principles, but does that need to be included in statute? Why does the Secretary of State have to decide who can make a nomination and who cannot? This gets the whole thing off on entirely the wrong footing, and it is the wrong sort of emotional approach to what one is trying to achieve—that is, localism, local responsibility and the ability of local authorities to respond to the desires of the local community. After all, the councillors are elected by people from the local community. That is the relationship that one should be building on. As a number of people, including my noble friends Lord Greaves and Lord Tope have said, this gives the impression that no one in Whitehall trusts local authorities unless they are being told what to do.

I am sorry, but I get quite hot under the collar about this because it rather upsets me. I have some sympathy with the noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Dillington, who put his name to the question on whether the clause stand part, to which I have also added my name. Having considered the details of the anxieties and objections of the local authority associations—I have them all here but I will not weary the House with them—I have come to the view that we cannot go ahead with this part in the way that it is currently conceived or drafted. The whole concept behind this seems to be drawn up on the wrong principles. I hate having to differ in such a rooted way from my noble friends on the Front Bench but one really has been driven to this. I have not had anything like the representations that my noble friends have had and have spoken about but, hearing them and realising what is behind this, I beg my noble friends to think again.